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ETHNICITY AND IMPERIAL BREAK-UP: ANCIENT AND MODERN by Alvin H. Bernstein B'ecause we have not prepared a vision for Europe in the post-Cold War era, we are witnessing in the Balkans and points east the early stages of what could rapidly become a new world ofchaos, the consequences ofsome of the uglier ethnic animosities which have been frozen for nearly two generations in the ice of the Cold War. The end of the Cold War came so unexpectedly that it caught the member states of the Western alliance embarrassingly unprepared. Until the eleventh hour we envisaged neverending Cold War. We spent many years struggling with the problem of how we would terminate the conflict if it turned hot, but none seriously planning a post-Warsettlement. It ispossibletothink ofhistoricalparallels for the sudden and wholly unanticipated collapse ofSoviet military power, but they do not necessarily augur well for the future ofEuropean security, as we shall see. We should immediately begin the process—which will take years to complete—of developing strategies and transforming traditional alliances and organizations to bring about a fair and stable settlement of Europe. This settlement has eluded us twice before in the twentieth century. It will do so again unless we understand how our collective, long-term interests, Alvin H. Bernstein is the Director of the Institute for National Strategic Studies, a division of the National Defense University, in Washington, D.C. The views expressed here are his own and do not necessarily represent those the National Defense University, the Department of Defense, or any government agency. 121 122 SAIS REVIEW presumably hidden in an unseen future, are being jeopardized by the unchecked, short-term chaos whose early stages confront us today, and what our stand is on the crucial but painfully complex issue of national self-determination. The current crisis in Bosnia illustrates both the problems of resolving ethnic animosities and raises the most profound questions about the future of European security. The United States jeopardizes its strategic interests by allowing this war to continue unabated and permitting its policy to be driven exclusively by the operational impedimenta to ending it. Rather like the United States before Pearl Harbor, the Western allies wish to halt the carnage but are fearful of becoming a part of it. They are increasingly coming to understand how the conflict, if allowed to continue, could not produce an acceptable outcome and foresee how it might cross borders and lead to the Balkanization of Europe—a continent rent by myriad divisions. What they do not see is how the precedent ofinaction may compromise the stability of the entire region in the long run, and lead eventually to a wholesale reversal ofthe political benefits ofthe liberation of Central and Eastern Europe. Three Historical Analogies What happened in the past when ethnic and national identities, long subordinated to a foreign imperial power, were suddenly unleashed by imperial disintegration? If we look at the effects of imperial break-up through an historical lens, we learn that it would be extremely dangerous to underestimate the power and extraordinary persistence of ethnicity as a disruptive force. This essay takes a long look at how ethnicity has influenced the break-up of the Spartan, Roman, and Persian empires, before analyzing the forces which may play a crucial role in shaping contemporary Europe. Classical Sparta Within a generation ofits victory over the Athenians in the Peloponnesian War,1 ancient Sparta lost a great battle at Luectra in 371 B.C. and lost her empire as well. With a single blow the elaborate web of security relations and subordinate city-states that Sparta had woven around itself through the centuries fell away. As news spread that the Spartan army had been defeated in the open field, insurrections erupted against the local, 1. See Thucydides'History ofthePefoponnesian War, translated by Rex Warner (Penguin edition). ETHNICITY AND IMPERIAL BREAK-UP 123 Spartan-supported oligarchies. Democratic revolutions swept through the Péloponnèse while dissident exiles began returning to seize power. Most importantly, when a Theban army arrived in Arcadia to strike the final, fatal blow against its enemy, the Spartan helot population rose in revolt and supported it. Although the...

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